“Confidence to a horse is everything and I was conscious of that when he kept having tough runs,” Heathcote said.
“He has a nice future and I believe he will make it to stakes grade, but I’m not going to Melbourne.

“I would prefer to stay here and go through to open company and then have a crack at the Magic Millions Cup.”

Trainer Desleigh Forster will run Too Good To Refuse in a mile race before considering a trip south for the Spring Champion Stakes after the son of Rothesay won in fast time on Saturday.

Dropping back from 1600m, Too Good To Refuse handled the transition to 1350m with ease and proved too strong for the higher-weighted Most Important in the run to the line.

“He should have won three weeks ago and I think he’s a really nice horse,” Forster said.

Fellow trainer Brian Smith praised the ride of James Orman after Lock’s Legend made it back-to-back wins.

“We both thought Revitalise was the one to beat and decided to follow him and let him do the work for us,” Smith said. “He’s come a long way this horse. He started out leading in 1200m races, and now he’s fully mature I think he will run 2000m.”

The win was Whiteley’s 4th career stakes win, and 2nd for the season and it was a gem of a ride – that is at least in the eye’s of Rock Royalty’s backers and connections – after Whiteley who had drawn gate 15 of 16 was able to give the 6-year-old son of Elusive City the run of the race, crossing down from the horror gate to sit just off leader Rocket To Glory in what was a hot tempo. Whiteley got the horse to settle perfectly in a lovely trailing position and nursed it right up around the turn perfectly, before hitting the go button at the furlong pole, and sending Rock Royalty home for a convincing win.

It looked a ‘ peach ‘, a ‘ 10 outta 10 ‘…. but Racing NSW deputy chief steward Greg Rudolph who was officiating at the meeting made the huge (& in my opinion totally outlandish) declaration that Whiteley had caused “the worst interference ever seen”, when crossing the field from the outside draw.

Whiteley was flabbergasted by the statement. Labelling it as “bullshit”!

“If you watch the race you barely can see the interference. Jockeys Colless and Schoefield said they were hampered, but never lost any ground.”

“It was (Stephen) Traecey who checked, but in my opinion it wasn’t drastic” Whiteley said.

“I put my hands up and just surrendered when Mr. Rudolph wanted to carry on, but I told him what I thought of his opinion”.

Whiteley instructed me, “Watch the replay. You will have to watch it a few times before you see any action unfold”. I did so, and couldn’t disagree one bit with the statement, with any interference clearly looking to be minor.

(ROCK ROYALTY RACES IN MAROON SILKS WITH THE WHITE CAP)

Whiteley was swiftly warned not to address stewards in such a manner and was told his behavior could warrant further charges.

Whiteley later apologised to Rudolph before being charged with careless riding and was suspended for nine meetings, to add to a $2000 fine.

It couldn’t do much to dampen Whiteley’s joy after the big country feature race win though, adding to what has been one of the esteemed provincial jockey’s best racing season’s in a 25+ year riding career.

Last December Whiteley scored his first Group race win ever, winning the Group 3 BJ McLachlan Stakes on Less Ross’ two year old Mishani Honcho. He also partnered the horse in Sydney during “The Championships” when it ran in the Group 1 Sire’s Produce Stakes at Royal Randwick and he admitted not only did it give him “exposure” on a larger scale but it gave his confidence “a huge boost”.

Whiteley is also an odds-on favorite to take out his 4th Gold Coast Jockey’s premiership, “It wasn’t a target at the start of the year but I’ll give it a crack, it’d certainly be nice to win another one if I do”.

Jockey’s Premierships and Group winners were a mile far-afield when Whiteley won his first ever race aboard Snobbery at Bathurst on the 23rd March 1991, but the now married, father of two has come along way on and off the track since then.

When asked to nominate a career highlight & the best horse he’s ridden, the decision on both counts was an easy one.

“Amex is the best I’ve ridden & the day he won the Magic Millions Cup, was just a great day, a clear career highlight”.

At 41, Whiteley still has plenty of good rides left in the kit bag in the years to come and it’s great to finally see a very much ‘under-rated’ hoop starting to get better and better riding opportunities, as he can match it with the best of them on his day.